Feeling optimistic!

Quelle tristesse !

Is this story ever going to get less dumb?

Devinez qui c’est qui a commandé un livre depuis la Suisse la semaine dernière ?

This got a dark chuckle from me.

I was already planning to voice skepticism about Apple partnerships with universities in a manuscript I’m writing, but now I’ve got this to cite as well.

I appreciate Masnick’s roundup of all the stupid things going on re: tariffs.

Well, if he’s going to ruin the economy, at least he can come by his strategy in the dumbest possible way.

I didn’t need to read a printer recommendation article today, but I’m so glad I did. The rage about the world we live in is great.

Studio Ghibli pictures are neat (legitimately! it’s one of the first generative AI things that’s tempted me!), but these deepfakes are the price we pay for them, and I think that’s too high a price.

I think this is a good example of why digital labor is a particularly salient critique of generative AI. Yes, Wikimedia content is licensed, but not as strictly as copyrighted works. Yet, ripping off of their work is arguably worse than grabbing some copyrighted works.

Good—if depressing—article.

Joli, ça !

I skipped over this article the first few times I saw it, but I think there’s some good stuff in here. Is defying Ghibli the point?

Masnick’s writing has never struck me as inflammatory or rushed. If he’s using this language, we should all be worried.

This seems… good? So good that I’m suspicious I’ve missed something.

Generative AI products make me mad, I don’t like them, and I’m not going to defend them. That said, if this gets framed as a copyright problem, is there any way to give Studio Ghibli (or Pixar or the Seuss estate) power to cry foul here that doesn’t also shut down fan art, parodies, and the like? I’m skeptical, and that’s why I think “labor” is the more productive—if more legally ambiguous—framing here.

This is unlikely to make a difference, but I’m grateful anyway.

Word of mouth and website games are exactly what got me to watch Napoleon Dynamite.

This is what my employer cut ties with.

Where does one start with how wild this story is?

50,000 is roughly as much as all students, faculty, and staff at the University of Kentucky. The whole university gone.

Let’s all support the Internet Archive—that goes for you, too, publishers.

What a dumb, petty administration this is.

C’est du n’importe quoi, ça. Quelle honte, ce pays.